Wednesday, May 16, 2018

Staunton, May 16 – Compared to their
elders, members of Russia’s millennial generation are marrying later, having
fewer children, attending church, growing up more slowly, and changing jobs
more frequently in pursuit of higher incomes, a new study by Vadim Radayev of
the Higher School of Economics concludes.

Those are all trends that hardly
correspond to the values Vladimir Putin has been promoting, although he is
likely to be happy that this generation is healthier than its predecessors,
drinking less, smoking less, and exercising more regularly than the members of
any of its predecessor.

Radayev defines
generations in terms not just of dates of birth but also of the most important
experiences the groups had when coming of age in the late teens and early 20s. He
thus divides Russians as part of the mobilization generation, the thaw
generation, the stagnation generation, the reform generation, the millennials,
and Generation Z.

Most of this study is devoted to the
Millenials, sometimes known as Generation Y, whose members were born between
1982 and 2000 and who have come of age between 1999 and 2017, that is the Putin
years.He draws a number of key
conclusions about how different they are from their predecessors:

·“In
contrast to their predecessors, the millennials haven’t hurried ‘to grow up,’
putting off marriages, the birth of children and joining the job market.” Only
54 percent of them by age 27 have married, down from 68 percent among the
reform generation; and 54 percent have not had children, a share up from 30.7
percent among the earlier one.

·The
share of millennials who are part of the workforce is 64 percent, down from 73
percent among the reform generation; and in pursuit of higher incomes quickly,
they change jobs far more often than do older groups.

·“To
a greater degree than their predecessors, millennials are concerned about
having a healthy way of life.” They drink less and smoke less than their elders
and are more actively involved in physical fitness routines.

·As
expected, the millennials are an online generation; but they are not responsible
for the rise of Internet as much as their immediate predecessor generation was,
although usage is still going up.The millennials,
however, are more likely to use social networks than their elders, 86 percent
compared to 69 percent. They use Facebook less often than many think: only 13
percent of them turn to that outlet. Far more use VKontakte (68 percent) and Odnoklassniki
(49 percent).

·Only
32 percent of millennials identify as religious and only six percent regularly
attend religious services, both far less than any of the preceding
generations.

·“The
younger the generation, the more often its representatives feel themselves to
be happy.” Sixty percent of Russian millennials do, higher than older
groups.And they are more optimistic
about the economic situation as well.But these figures may very well fall as the group ages and is more
dependent on the economy than it is today.